Richard II. Jacob Abbott
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that came in his way. There followed a long war. The English were, on the whole, the victors in the war, and at the end of it a treaty was made by which Leolin's wife, it is true, was restored to him, but his kingdom was brought almost completely under the power of the English kings.
The unhappy fate of Leolin.
Of course, Leolin was extremely dissatisfied with this result, and he became more and more uneasy in the enthralled position to which the English king had reduced him, and finally a new war broke out. Leolin was beaten in this war too, and in the end, in a desperate battle that was fought among the mountains, he was slain. He was slain near the beginning of the battle. The man who killed him did not know at the time who it was that he had killed, though he knew from his armor that he was some distinguished personage or other. When the battle was ended this man went back to the place to see, and, finding that it was the Prince Leolin whom he had slain, he was greatly pleased. He cut off the head from the body, and sent it as a present to the king. The king sent the head to London, there to be paraded through the streets on the end of a long pole as a token of victory. After being carried in this manner through Cheapside—then the principal street of London—in order that it might be gazed upon by all the people, it was set up on a high pole near the Tower, and there remained a long time, a trophy, as the king regarded it, of the glory and renown of a victory, but really an emblem of cruel injustice and wrong perpetrated by a strong against a weaker neighbor.
Fate of Prince David, his brother.
Not long after this the King of England succeeded in taking Prince David, the brother of Leolin, and, under the pretense that he had been guilty of treason, he cut off his head too, and set it up on another pole at the Tower of London, by the side of his brother's.
Occasional acts of generosity.
It must be admitted, however, that, although these ancient warriors were generally extremely unjust in their dealings with each other, and often barbarously cruel, they were still sometimes actuated by high and noble sentiments of honor and generosity. On one occasion, for instance, when this same Edward the First, who was so cruel in his treatment of Leolin, was at war in Scotland, and was besieging a castle there, he wrote one day certain dispatches to send to his council in London, and, having inquired for a speedy and trusty messenger to send them by, a certain Welshman named Lewin was sent to him. The king delivered the package to Lewin inclosed in a box, and also gave him money to bear his expenses on the way, and then sent him forth.
Story of Lewin and the box of dispatches.
Lewin, however, instead of setting out on his journey, went to a tavern, and there, with a party of his companions, he spent the money which he had received in drink, and passed the night carousing. In the morning he said that he must set out on his journey, but before he went he must go back to the castle and have one parting shot at the garrison. Under this pretext, he took his cross-bow and proceeded toward the castle wall; but when he got there, instead of shooting his arrows, he called out to the wardens whom he saw on guard over the gate, and asked them to let down a rope and draw him up into the castle, as he had something of great importance to communicate to the governor of it.
So the wardens let down a rope and drew Lewin up, and then took him to the governor, who was then at breakfast. Lewin held out the box to the governor, saying,
"Here, sir, look in this box, and you may read all the secrets of the King of England."
He said, moreover, that he would like to have the governor give him a place on the wall, and see whether he could handle a cross-bow or not against the English army.
Gunpowder and guns had not been introduced as means of warfare at this time; the most formidable weapon that was then employed was the cross-bow. With the cross-bow a sort of square-headed arrow was used called a quarrel.
The governor, instead of accepting these offers on the part of Lewin, immediately went out to one of the turrets on the wall, and, calling to the English soldiers whom he saw below, he directed them to tell the King of England that one of his servants had turned traitor, and had come into the castle with a box of dispatches.
"And tell him," said the governor, "that if he will send some persons here to receive him, I will let the man down to them over the wall, and also restore the box of dispatches, which I have not opened at all."
The fate of Lewin.
Immediately Lord Spencer, one of the king's chief officers, came to the wall, and the governor of the castle let Lewin down to him by a rope, and also passed the box of letters down. The King of England was so much pleased with this generosity on the part of the governor that he immediately ceased his operations against the castle, though he caused Lewin to be hanged on a gallows of the highest kind.
Origin of the modern title of Prince of Wales.
But to return to Wales. After the death of Leolin and his brother the kingdom of Wales was annexed to England, and has ever since remained a possession of the British crown. The King of England partly induced the people of Wales to consent to this annexation by promising that he would still give them a native of Wales for prince. They thought he meant by this that they should continue to be governed by one of their own royal family; but what he really meant was that he would make his own son Prince of Wales. This son of his was then an infant. He was born in Wales. This happened from the fact that the king, in the course of his conquests in that country, had seized upon a place called Caernarvon, and had built a castle there, in a beautiful situation on the Straits of Menai, which separate the main land from the isle of Anglesea.
The first English Prince of Wales.
When his castle was finished the king brought the queen to Caernarvon to see it, and while she was there, her child, Prince Edward, who afterward became Edward the Second, was born.
This was the origin of the title of Prince of Wales, which has been held ever since by the oldest sons of the English sovereigns.
Piers Gaveston.
This first English Prince of Wales led a most unhappy life, and his history illustrates in a most striking manner one of the classes of quarrels enumerated at the head of this chapter, namely, the disputes and contentions that often prevailed between the sovereign of the country and his principal nobles. While he was a young man he formed a very intimate friendship with another young man named Piers Gaveston. This Gaveston was a remarkably handsome youth, and very prepossessing and agreeable in his manners, and he soon gained a complete ascendency over the mind of young Edward. He was, however, very wild and dissolute in his habits, and the influence which he exerted upon Edward was extremely bad. As long as the common people only were injured by the lawless behavior of these young men, the king seems to have borne with them; but at last, in a riot in which they were concerned, they broke into the park of a bishop, and committed damage there which the king could not overlook. He caused his son, the young prince, to be seized and put into prison, and he banished Gaveston from the country, and forbade his son to have any thing more to do with him. This was in 1305, when the prince was twenty-one years of age.
Edward II. and his favorite.
Their wild and reckless behavior.
In 1307, two years later, the king died, and the prince succeeded him, under the title of King Edward the Second. He immediately sent for Gaveston to return to England, where he received him with the greatest joy. He made him a duke, under the title of Duke of Cornwall; and as for the bishop whose park he and Gaveston had broken into, and on whose complaint Gaveston had been banished, in order to punish him for these offenses, the young king seized him and delivered him into Gaveston's hands as a prisoner, and at the same time confiscated his estates and gave them to Gaveston. Gaveston sent the bishop about from castle to castle as a prisoner, according as his caprice or fancy dictated.
These things made the barons and nobles of England extremely indignant, for Gaveston, besides being a corrupt and dissipated character,